Midnight in Jermyn Street
by Tazlet
Summary: The Turkish baths in Jermyn Street are open all night, and for one-and-six a man may come as close to godliness - or something very like it - as is possible in this work-a-day world.


Midnight in Jermyn Street  
by Taz

The guardians of public decency had every justification to be suspicious of public baths, in Edmund Reid's experience. Still, the Jermyn Street establishment had a respectable reputation and its advertising sheets touted an atmosphere of opulent serenity; serenity was what he yearned for.

He passed his boots to the bootblack and accepted a stack of blue and white stripped towels and a key on a lanyard in exchange for his ticket. Between the concierge and the bootblack's booth there was a spiral stairway that wound down into the bowels of the building. The changing booths were at the bottom. He found the one that took his key, peeled off his clothing and hung it neatly on the brass hooks provided. He wrapped a towel round his waist, and then caught himself tweaking his coat and jacket, a niggling little action to postpone stepping out of the booth. He told himself sternly that here was no reason a healthy well-formed man should be ashamed to seen by strangers. There had been, in fact still places where he wouldn't hesitate, but here, where no one wore a bathing costume…

Finally he draped another towel over his shoulders and with most of the scars disfiguring his chest and arms hidden, braved the length of the cooling room.

He needn't have concerned himself. None of the shrouded figures lying on the divans so much as twitched a towel. Other than an occasional raucous honk emitted by a sleeper, the calm was tangible; the tranquility of the lotus eaters.

For once the advertising had not been overstated; the hall leading to the baths was a miracle of rare device. Subtle lighting illuminated the cast iron pillars with the Corinthian capitals that supported an elaborately patterned tin ceiling. Jewel toned marble covered the floor. There was a fountain; the soft plashing of its water melded with the hushed, deferential tones of the attending cenobites and cloaked the slap of their bare feet as they carried drinks into to private enclosures defined by polished mahogany screens.

At the entrance to the baths proper, Reid surrendered the remainder of his stack of towels to a boy who placed them a cubby, and stepped through the double doors to the first hot room. It felt as if he had been slapped in the face. The heat was a tangible thing, so extreme that by the time he'd chosen a buttock blistering seat on one of the lower shelves by a vent in the wall, all of the moisture had been stripped from the surface of his body. He had his choice of shelves; only one of them was occupied. To save the soles of his feet, he pulled them up and lay flat wishing that he could surrender to the heat as easily as the other man lying stretched out prone with his face in the hollow of his crossed arms. At his side had a flask, a newspaper and a brown leather wallet of the sort that pickpockets called readers.

Earlier that evening, as if he hadn't felt mucky enough, he'd had to put up with Homer Jackson slouching against the door frame of his office, opining—without the least consideration that anyone might be listening—that after three weeks of washing in a basin with a flannel, a man wasn't fit company for himself, much less his friends and associates.

Reid could take a hint, although, that coming from Jackson who was hardly an apostle of the Sanitary Reform Movement had prickled. 'Yes, thank you,' he had snarled. He was sick of his own squalor, but the boiler at home was cold. (He had let the cook and the girl both go.) 'The Turkish baths in Jermyn Street are open all night,' Jackson had said. 'For one-and-six a man can come as close to godliness as is possible in this work-a-day world.' Then he'd struck a Lucifer match on his heel, fired up one of his stinking cheroots, and sauntered off.

Leave it to Jackson to prick the bubble of his conceit. Reid had thought that he'd been successfully keeping the fact that Emily had left him to himself. How could the men help but know. The Tenter Street gossips would have put it about that Long Susan's laundress was doing his shirts, and they could see him sleeping on the daybed in his office, and eating all his meals at the Brown Bear. Their rough compassion—in conforming to his pretense that all was well—was humiliating, and he was already angry at how much it hurt, and had gone on hurting after all of the hoarded hope was gone. He had told himself that he'd been trying to protect Emily. In his selfishness he had betrayed her, and alienated Deborah Goring. But, if there was no escaping the guilt, at least he could have a bath and a shampoo.

His sat up and pressed the ends of the towel against his eyes until they stopped stinging. He blotted his neck and breast bone, and told himself to think of something else. There were newspapers outside, that he could have brought in, but the headlines were all a-panic that the plague in China would arrive in English ports, or salacious speculation about the Frederick Deeming case. He'd had his fill of epidemics and murderers.

His companion in the _tepidarium_, a fairish man in his forties, let a quiet sigh and turned over on his side, giving Reid a full view of his face. and front.

He remembered Jackson saying that there was a book written on every man's body—his profession, his health and his happiness—all those things were a textbook if one cared to read it. Annoying as he was, Jackson had his uses. Reid pulled the towel up over his head to shade his eyes, and applied himself to the study of his companion.

The man had to be a veteran officer—that part was easy—close cropped hair, dark from sweat, curling tightly to his skull, and a neat military mustache. He had regular features, although pain had left its mark on them. Damaged flesh and surgical scars on his thigh were only partially covered by a towel. Likely he'd got that wound in action, although, it needed Jackson to determine the nature of the weapon.

As sensing Reid's regard, the man opened his eyes—they were clear and grey—and gave him look for look. Reid was abashed. It was a relief when one of the attendants walked in. "Will you need assistance to the _calidarium_, Doctor?" he said.

"Thank you, no." The doctor sat up. "This dry heat eases my leg as nothing else, and Charles will complete the cure."

The attendant then turned to Reid. "May I fetch you some refreshment, Sir?"

Reid declined. The attendant left.

"You should have him bring you some water," the grey-eyed doctor said. "This is your first time, isn't it?"

Reid acknowledged that it was.

"Well don't over-do. Not twenty-five minutes here, and no more than ten in the _calidarium_. Take that as a prescription. They keep the rooms here at the advertised temperature."

"Are not all rooms in public baths kept so?"

"Rarely. Cutting back on fuel is the first cost-saving measure a board of directors discovers. A few degrees difference saves a few tons of coal." The man eased his feet into a pair of felt slippers. "You've had approximately fifteen minutes. Don't push it. And I always advise a nice long cool-down."

He smiled sympathetically, and left Reid with a riot of unaccountable emotions writhing in his breast. How long had it been since he'd spoken with someone who did not know him, who had no reason to pass judgment on him.

He was surprised to find himself disappointed not to meet the doctor in the _calidarium_, but there he was in the _laconicum_, and awarded Reid a nod of approval as he hot-footed it to a chaise.

Regrettably, the doctor closed his eyes immediately after, communicating a disinclination for conversation. There was nothing Reid could do about it; they had not been introduced; the man had addressed him solely in his professional capacity. That detail would never have bothered Homer Jackson, but Reid was entirely lacking the American's democratic insouciance. Absent a crime, he had no reason to initiate any sort of conversation. Not that he had time for much reflection; the heat of the _laconicum_ was intolerable, even five minutes of it, and when the attendant returned, Reid informed him that he, too, was ready for his shampoo.

The shampoo rooms were open alcoves across from each other. They were still heated to a high temperature, but nothing like the _laconicum_ and, now and then, a gentle draft ruffled the canvas curtain that separated them from the plunge bath.

Each room was accoutered with a marble slab, basin, shower cage, hoses and nozzles. Each was manned by an artist of the shampoo, well-muscled men costumed in bulky white loincloths. That evening there were two, as different from each other as they could possibly be.

The young man—Charles—who helped the doctor on to a slab was so dark he might have been Turkish.

The man who invited Reid to lie down on his slab had to have been born near Cheapside. He had a trim mustache and white streaks in his hair that suggested middle-age was creeping up.

"Call me Burt," he said, looking Reid over, much as a potter might assess a lump of clay before giving the wheel a good kick. "You'll be wantin' it hard, then?"

"Yes," Reid said. "Hard."

"Will you have rose, lilac, lavender, peony, bergamot, or sandalwood?"

"What?" He had always found the process of being shampooed unsettling. Lying on a slab, with one's head resting on a block of wood, and a small towel to protect one's modesty…

"Your oil, sir. Which scent do you favor?"

"Lilac." Reid remembered the purple and white bushes in Emily's garden.

"Lilac it is."

Burt poured oil into his palm and rubbed his hands together. The motion set the tails of a pair of smiling mermaids, one on each arm, to swishing. Burt then seized Reid's right hand and, starting with the fingertips, began to manipulate and rub each joint. Flexing the palm, he work his way up wrist and forearm, kneading and pulling. His hands were soft, the fingers strong, finding a knot of muscle, they ease it.

There was no hesitancy in Burt's hands, sliding easily over the twisted flesh, when they reached Reid's shoulder. "That hurt?"

"No."

"You'll sing out if it hurts?"

"I will." Reid lied.

He wondered what thoughts a man who spent his nights laboring over other men's bodies in a Stygian world of heat and water could have. Slowly, though, he began to melt, under Burt's ministrations, and the muted drone of the conversation that was going on between the doctor and his shampooer. The two were obviously old acquaintances.

Burt lifted Reid's head and began to wind circles into the tight muscles at the base of his skull.

"That hurt, guv?"

"No."

Burt began to stroke the back of his neck, and suddenly Reid felt himself on the verge of tears again. How many days, weeks, months had it been since anyone had touched him? Anywhere?

Emily, in her pain, hadn't been able to bear the sight of his scars. She had turned away, and he'd forborne to approach her, until he was reduced to begging. Why shouldn't they comfort each other? Didn't he, too, long to hear Matilda's laugher?

But it hadn't mattered if Emily had tolerated his attentions, or turned him away; they had only hurt each other.

_Think of something else. Anything else!_

A man should be able to control himself, but in his need he had thrown himself into Deborah Goren's arms.

He could hear Charles' voice. "…Remember how he caught that second story gent what was using what he picked up here in our very own lounge to burgle people's houses…?"

Reid's ears pricked up. Hadn't it been Lestrade who'd captured the villain the papers called the Bathhouse Burglar? Was it two years ago? It had certainly been Lestrade's name bruited in all the papers. Aberline had expressed himself to the effect of 'That jumped up little rodent's havin' an un-looked for streak of success in the detective line.' Come to think of it, Reid hadn't heard of Lestrade blowing his bugle lately, but neither had he heard that he'd quit, or taken his pension.

"How does that feel?" Burt settled Reid's head on the block.

"Good," said Reid. "It feels good."

"…Never seen anyone as clever as him. Still can't believe we won't see him in his old place…"

The doctor made no reply to Charles' remark. Well, Reid wouldn't have picked the grey-eyed doctor to be an acquaintance of Lestrade's. Then who could they be…? Without thinking, he opened his eyes. Burt's belly—there was a neat swirl of salt and pepper fur circling his navel—was mere inches from his nose.

"You'll oblige me by turnin' over."

Reid obliged. Burt began to work on his feet and ankles, the same manipulations, the same stroking and pulling.

Across the way, Charles was bending and flexing the doctor's damaged leg. That the action was painful was evident in the white-knuckle grip the doctor had on the edge of the slab, and the fact that he'd made no effort to adjust his towel. It had ridden up and with each pull and push his prick gave a bounce on its dark blond bush.

Reid wished he could be as unashamed.

Deborah—Miss Goren—her breasts had been as soft as pillows—as different from Emily in bed as it was possible to be for a woman to be. Her needs had been as urgent as Reid's and her hands had roamed his body everywhere that Burt's were touching him now. Small mercy she had never given him the chance to betray her.

"Harder!" the doctor gasped. Burt seemed to pick up on the urgency in his voice. He was kneading the muscles at the small of Reid's back and began to push harder.

Deborah had known the difference between need and love. The day after she had told him that she was going to be married—to a good man, Jewish—Jackson had strolled into the station house, late again. That morning he'd had a mouse over his right eye. He'd hitched himself on a corner of the desk were Drake and Reid had been drinking coffee, and began to roll a cigarette. Drake had looked at Reid and said, apropos of nothing, apparently, 'Brother, find me the first man who said that women are the weaker sex, and I will beat the shit out of that lyin' pup.' Jackson had stuck the roll-up in the corner of his mouth, and said, 'I 'spect there's a line.'

Reid blinked away the memory.

"Harder! You can't hurt me!"

The doctor was up on his front, arching back, supporting himself on his elbows. Charles had climbed on top of the slab, on top of the doctor, and was bending over him, grinding his knee into the damaged muscles of his leg. "Harder!" the doctor goaded Charles. Burt's hands glided over Reid's flanks.

The doctor's back gleamed with oil, exaggerating the sweeping curve from his head to the swell of his buttocks—the yellow gas-light—the thrusting muscles of Charles's thigh—the contrasting tones of their flesh—pale and dark—the scene was as lurid and exotic as a French postcard.

The two strained, and Reid stared. At last the doctor cried, "Enough!" He collapsed, panting, and Charles hopped onto the floor.

Burt's hands stroked easily over Reid's shoulders. "Almost ready for your lather, sir."

"Yes." Reid watched Charles whip a copper basin full of soapy water into froth. Burt, behind him, must be doing the same thing from the sound of rhythmic beating.

"Turn over now." Reid turned. Burt spread spumy lather all over and began scrubbing with a coarse bathing mitt. The action removed the dry scruff. Burt was tender, for the most part, working over his scars. He turned at Burt's orders, and turned again, but neither could he help listening to what Charles saying to the doctor.

"Marriage is agreeing with you, sir."

"I should say it does."

At least it agreed with somebody, Reid thought jealously.

"Good to see you putting on a bit of weight."

"There's an awful lot to be said for regular meals and not getting called out in the middle of the night to jaunt all over the countryside."

Burt snorted.

"Easy!" Reid jerked. Burt had gone over a spot that he'd already scrubbed.

"Sorry, Gov. Ready for the douche?"

"Yes." Reid sat up.

The doctor hadn't going for the full douche, merely a rinse, and was already done. After handing Charles a shilling, he was buckling his wallet. His auburn pelt was plastered to his belly in curls, and his ruddy prick was dripping wet. How unashamed he was, despite his scars. As it had in the hot room, a flash of sympathetic energy jumped between them at the thought. The doctor looked over at Reid. "A nice long cool-down, remember?" he called out, then winked, and disappeared through the split in the curtain.

Burt helped Reid climb down from the slab and into the shower cage for the rinse, where he clung to the bars while the hot streams of the needle jets—like rods with hard rubber tips—ran up and down his back, titillating head to tail. Then came the wave, soft and luscious, like a painter's broad brush. Lastly, there was the cool shower.

"There you go." Burt said, drying him off.

The shampoo was done, and Burt was hanging his hoses on their hooks. "Want me to take care of that, Gov?" he said. "A little oil. Won't take but a twinkle."

"What…?" It was that moment, as Burt was reaching for the oil, that to Reid's everlasting shame, he comprehended how his body had betrayed him. "Bloody Hell!" His face flamed. "I'm a bloody policeman!"

"Oh, God!" Burt went the color of foolscap and his eyes turned into pools of black fear. "I didn't mean no harm! Please! I've a wife and five little kiddies at home!" The man was so scared that he backed into the sink. The bottle of oil slipped from his hand and smashed on the floor. A whole bush of lilacs burst into bloom.

"I'm not going to arrest you, man!" Did he imagine that Reid was going to haul him down to Scotland Yard, and accuse him of…? Oh, that would give the City men a good laugh, and he had never taken pleasure in being seen as a bully. "What in God's name, were you thinking?"

Without bothering to wait for an answer, Reid stumbled down the steps into the plunge pool, traversed it quickly, and took advantage of the tent at the other end to leave the water unseen. The towel boy, who had been on the job earlier, was there and swaddled him like a mummy.

He intended to dress and leave immediately. But as he started up the aisle to the changing rooms, a buzzing in his ears grew louder. Suddenly everything went dark and the room seemed to tilt. He groped for one of the open half-screens, missed and pitched into it. Someone caught him, as his legs folded.

"Sir! Are you…?"

"Bring water!"

"No bother…"

He was half supported to a divan. He sat down, submitted to pressure on his shoulder and sank into softness. The fog bank swept in until he couldn't see anything except the grey-eyed doctor's face, as if from the wrong end of a telescope, looking at him with concern.

"What…?"

"Be quiet." The doctor took his wrist. "That was stupidly foolish of you. Next time, ask for water, or bring it into the hot rooms with you."

"I didn't…"

"Damn right, you didn't!" One of the attendants came in with a carafe of water. The doctor poured a glass. "Now, drink!" The doctor's hand clamped his over the glass and held them there while he sipped it all. Then he took it away and said, "Lay back. You'll feel better presently."

Reid lay back.

Presently, the buzzing in his ears faded, and he was himself, lying on one of the divans in a private enclosure. The tops of the half-screened doors were opened out to let air in. The doctor and an attendant were hovering over him.

"What happened…?" Reid said.

"You fainted."

"I never…"

"You did. You need to be more careful, Inspector Reid. Scar tissue, as you undoubtedly know, does not sweat."

"I did not know," Reid said.

The doctor turned to the attendant. "Bring gin and a bottle of tonic water, please," he said.

"You have the advantage of me." Reid said. "Should I know you?"

"Watson. John Watson," the doctor said. "You may have met an associate of mine. At the time of the Whitechapel murders he was following them closely. As it happened, we both attended an inquest at which you were present. You were not well served by the medical examiner on that occasion."

"No." Reid fell silent. The fall of '88 wasn't a time he cared to remember.

At least this Doctor Watson wasn't inclined to obsess on the subject, as so many were. The attendant had returned with a tray, and his attention was for the mixture of gin and quinine water he was preparing.

"I shouldn't advise alcohol for fluid replenishment, but frankly you look done. Get outside of this," he said, handing a glass to Reid. "Slowly does it."

Reid sipped. As he did, the whole last act of the shampoo, and Burt's proposition came back to him.

The doctor had been watching him closely, and must have seen something in his face. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"My wife left me…" He stopped appalled. Of all the things he could have said!

The doctor didn't seem to find the remark outré, though. "Yes, you said this was your first time at the baths." Reid could feel himself blushing. "Do I take it you found yourself aroused at some point by the experience?"

He wasn't going to lie. "What does it say about me?"

"Nothing. Nothing at all, other than the fact that you have blood in your veins." The doctor smiled, a little ruefully. "In all my travels and, please believe me, they include extensive experience in the more exotic flesh pots of three continents, I have yet to meet a man who could truthfully say he was in control of his prick. It has no conscience. It won't conform to our most strongly held convictions, or honor our most heartfelt vows." The doctor held up his left hand to show a gold band on the third finger. "It's the unruly member from Ballston, and will not respect even our deepest…"

Abruptly his smile was gone. It had been freighted with more than an element of melancholy, but it had been a smile nonetheless. Now his hand clenched and he was staring into the distance. "Far from it," he whispered.

Recognizing pain when he saw it, Reid said, "I'm sorry."

"No… I-I lost a friend, recently. We used to come here often. Sometimes I imagine that I see him, or that hear his voice..." The doctor scrubbed a hand through his hair. "Well, I must be off. Mary is used to my odd hours, but I don't like to cause her unnecessary worry." He stood; they shook hands. "Stay here and rest a while. I keep offices in Claridge Street, if you care to drop by, I'd like to give you a referral to Harold Gillies. He is doing pioneering work with burn scar."

"Thank you," Reid said, and the doctor was gone. He closed the screens behind him.

He would have got up and left, too, if he'd had anywhere to go. At home, silence shrouded every room and even contemplating disturbing the dust felt like sacrilege. There was no place else, except back to the daybed in his office, and the twenty-seven nannies downstairs. He mixed himself another glass of gin, stronger, and settled back. May as well stay. Here, at least, no one would try and nurse maid him. He was wrong about that.

With no idea how long he'd been drowsing, he woke peacefully from an extremely pleasant dream of Deborah's dark hair was drifting across…

And realized that someone on the other divan was leaning forward, watching him. He'd lowered the level of gin in the bottle considerably, so he wasn't sure about the bristly chin that was resting on the laced fingers, but he would have recognized those mermaids' tails anywhere.

Reid made to sit up.

Burt pushed him flat. "Relax, guvnor, I told t'other guvnor, I'd have a look in on you. Just wanted to be certain we were good."

"We're good?" _What…? Oh, the man must be hinting for a tip._ "Where are my trousers?"

"From the key dangling from your wrist, I expect your trousers are in your changing room," Burt said. There something funny about his…

"What is it? A shilling?" Reid stared at the silver key.

"The shampoo's part of the regular service. A gratuity is not necessary for regular service."

"Then what's the tip for?"

"Any little extras."

"Extras?"

"There's lots of fellows raises a horn during the shampoo. Vote's its own ticket. I helps 'em out, like, and it helps 'em relax." The corner of Burt's lip gave a little twitch. "It don't mean a thing."

"What are you talking about? 'Vote's its own ticket?'"

"Like the unruly member from Ballston." There was something… There was definitely something about Burt's accent—it kept slipping off to some locality west of Cheapside—and there was a distinct intensity in his black eyes. But the sheer unmitigated gall of the man was that he reached out and placed his hand over Reid's crotch. And there was no concealing the hardness it discovered. "Here endeth the lesson," Burt said, as Reid shuddered. "I will tell you that, even though it's the wrong time and not what either of us might desire, it would give me a great deal of pleasure to do a little extra something for you.

Reid made no reply.

Burt stood up and undid his loin cloth, which fell to the floor. He stepped out of it, as Reid moved over to make room.

It was rough. Two men, too long without, grappling and fumbling, and the sheet tangled between them, creating friction and pockets in which to thrust, too much of a confusion. Reid was spent long before he could get it out of the way.

Looking back, after that sudden hot discharge, it wouldn't have surprised him if Burt had fallen on him and taken his pleasure, then and there, any way he liked. He hadn't. The only thing Reid remembered in the minutes after was the warmth of breath on his cheek, as Burt worked to untangle them from the sheet.

And as Reid recovered his composure, Burt indulged him with the gentlest of questions—teeth tracing the edge of his jaw, the touch of lips at the base of his throat, the pestering of a nipple. That pestering—the flicking of Burt's tongue—in particular, thrilled him with its novelty. He groaned, finding himself growing hard again, as Burt continued the interrogation, working his way down until, inevitably, he arrived at the crux of the matter and took Reid into his mouth. Not all at once, but more than enough to command Reid's full attention.

Teasing and teasing, tongue and teeth—the third degree—Burt took Reid to the edge, and then pulled back. It was delightful torture until Reid was growling with frustration and threatening to bring a writ against him. His gasping threats made Burt laugh, and the rippling gurgle in his throat tickled swollen overheated flesh to a delightful silken conclusion—feeling the soft unravelling skein—being consumed—a perfect combination. It was a degree of intimacy Reid had never experienced—had never imagined experiencing—not even with Deborah Goren.

He was demolished but Burt, still chortling, scooted back to the head of the divan. He shifted Reid's body and slipped an arm under his head, snugging them together. The man had more self-restraint than Reid could possibly imagine. His prick, though, was furious, deep red and dribbling wet smears on Reid's skin.

Of the two of them, it was Reid who actually had the advantage in muscle and reach. He pulled Burt on top of him, captured that prick between his thighs and squeezed, encouraging Burt to use him; a gentleman pays his debts.

Burt complied but he was no longer smiling. And the size of his pupils—was it some sort of drug? Although he was stroking Reid's cheek with the back of his hand, he was also searching for someone else in Reid's face. Burt closed his eyes, shuddered, and gave a tiny gasp Reid sighed; there was no more time to wonder who; he felt the hot gush seeping around his balls, and under his buttocks.

As they lay there, Reid could hear passing voices on the other side of the screen. The theaters had let out. Customers were padding to the hot rooms. Burt muttered something about having to go.

"Must you?"

"Yes." Burt pushed himself up, and then looked at Reid and bent down. His mustache tickled. "There's always sadness after. The bed is wet, the muscles cramped, and the midnight stranger's weight unbearable. But I expect to be here for the foreseeable future, should you ever feel the need of a bath."

"I'll remember," Reid said. "One-and-six."

"It's a good living. Some people would be surprised." Burt grinned, and there was not even the pretense of Cheapside in his voice.

_Finis__  
__5/30/2014_


End file.
